Picking a name for your blog

Now that you have decided on your niche, you need to pick a name for your blog.

Picking a name for my blogs is always one of the most difficult tasks. You want it to be right, you want it to be memorable too. And you want it to reflect your niche. So there is a lot to consider when choosing the right name for your blog.

You probably already have an idea but maybe you’re just not sure it’s right. Or you may not know what to call your blog at all right now. Don’t worry, I know a lot of bloggers are unhappy with their blog name but they have made a success of it nevertheless.

The most important thing about your blog is the content. If the content is what people remember about your blog, they will also remember your blog name, whatever it is. However, you want your name to at least reflect your blog content. If you are blogging about a specific niche, the name should, if possible, reflect that. 

Here are a few tips to help you along:

Make it relevant to your niche

It’s a good idea to make your blog name relevant to your niche. Make a list of all the words you can think of that relate to your niche. Just write it all down on a piece of paper. Looking at the written words can sometimes jog your memory or inspire you. Get out that notebook and give it a try!

So if you are blogging about, for example, pet care, you want your name to reflect that. You can even use a Thesaurus to help you along. So if you type in pet, for example, not only will it bring up synonyms but also related words. Play with a combination of words, and try adding words that reflect something about you or something you love. You can also use a domain name generator like Nameboy or Panabee.  Type in two or three words that describe your blog and it will come up with loads of names. I find Nameboy comes up with more useful names than Panabee, but both can be useful in as far as they can give you ideas and inspiration.

Don’t mislead

Make sure your blog name is not misleading, so if you are blogging about food for example, make sure the name reflects that niche and not something else. However, even that hasn’t stopped some organisations or companies from being successful, a good example would be Airbnb.  The name suggests air travel to me but it is really an accommodation sharing platform. Or  think of companies like Apple (they don’t sell apples 🙂 or Google, which isn’t even a word 🙂 . However, as a starting blogger, it really is best to start with a name that reflects what you write about.

Think about your audience

Your target audience can also help in your name search. Who is your blog directed at? Young, old, female, male… or maybe you are more specific and you are targeting people on a special diet, or cat lovers. What is your audience looking for? Advice? Or are they looking for interesting stories to read about your area? Is your blog written for beginners? You can combine words that describe your niche with what your audience is looking for.

Make it easy

Make it easy to write and easy to remember. Some names sound great until you write them down and you find them difficult to spell. Remember that people will most likely type your domain name into their search bar or your blog name into Google to find you. If it’s hard to spell (or remember), that won’t help!

Check out your competition

What are other bloggers in your niche calling their blogs? Let them inspire you. That being said, don’t copy! Be yourself as much as possible, as much as you admire somebody else’s style, don’t copy them or you won’t stand out. There are lots of bloggers out there and you want to be unique and have your own style. However, looking at your competitors can inspire you and may give you ideas that you can adapt and change to your own style.

Make the name a call to action

Are you helping other people achieve something with your blog? Maybe you are helping other people to focus on positive thinking so your blog could be called ‘focus on positives’ or ‘think positively’. If you are writing about the Paleo diet, for example, you could call it ‘Start your Paleo journey’ or ‘Learn about Paleo’. Those names might not be very exciting or clever but they really spell out what your blog is about.

Check the domain is available

Once you have thought of a name, the next thing you want to do is to check that the domain is available. A domain name is the address of your blog. For example, my blog is called ‘the home boss‘ and the domain is thehomeboss.com; it’s where you find it on the internet. Some domain names have www. in front of them, others don’t. You can choose to have a .com at the end or a co.uk, or .net, or others. So for example, if the name you have chosen for your blog is ‘My London Lifestyle’, for example, you need to check if mylondonlifestyle.com is available.

If it is, the next step is to buy the domain. That means the name is yours for however long you want it and pay for it. You can buy domain names for less than £10 a year, some are a bit more, depending on the name.

What if the domain name is taken?

One of my blogs is a gardening blog that started off as a lifestyle blog (remember I told you blogs can change over time? My one did). I wanted the name to reflect the gardening niche but also my other category which is positive thinking.

I don’t know why but thinking of a name was one of the hardest things. Every time I thought I had something, it just didn’t feel right. Or it was too long, or too complicated. Nothing worked for me.

Then I thought of the saying ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. Great quote and at the time I had just bought a lemon tree for my garden. So I thought my name should be ‘life and lemons’. Yeay! All set to blog.

Wrong! Turns out, when I went to buy the domain name (I wanted lifeandlemons.com), it was already taken!

This might happen to you too, you will think of the perfect name only for it to be unavailable. But don’t worry, I found a solution. I thought of adding a short word to the name and my blog Sweet Life and Lemons was born. Just by adding the word sweet in front of my chosen name, I was able to buy the domain. Not perfect but I like it!

So if you find your name is taken, try adding an adjective before, between or after your name. For example: sweet, warm, great, big, short, long, magical, great, tall, fabulous, easy, cosy, crazy, red, green, yellow… you get the idea. There are lots of adjectives that can be matched to your niche.

For this blog, I had chosen Home Boss. That was taken, so it became The Home Boss.

One last thing

I did make one mistake though, I didn’t check whether the name was already taken on social media. I found that somebody else was already using The Home Boss on instagram and Pinterest. Big mistake. Luckily I found a way around it by changing the name slightly for those social media platforms. Avoid making my mistake from the start.

You can use companies like Godaddy.com or 123-reg.co.uk to buy your domain from, but as you need to host your blog, you can also do this directly from your hosting company. This will be covered in my next post, where I will walk you through finding the best host company for your blog. So check out my next blog post,  all about taking your next step towards owning your own blog!

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions in the comments. I will try my best to help out.

PS. One small request: if you enjoyed reading this, please share it ?

A share would really help a lot with the success of this blog. It won’t take long and I would be so grateful. Please pin, tweet or share on Facebook.  Thank you so much!

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